BOOK TWO - CHAPTER NINE
 

Margot Fenring's reports about her husband confirm what earlier Bene Gesserit analyses already stated: the Count displays certain traits we seek in the Kwisatz Haderach, but his genetically caused physical inadequacy, apart from disqualifying him outright for that part of the program geared towards future generations, also manifested itself in a failure to achieve the proper mental balance necessary to survive the Agony. Instead of being able to function as a focal point, collecting multiple streams of thoughts and memories, forming a harmonious synthesis and distributing new streams over potential futures, his defect forced his personality inward, possibly the result of the activities of a coping mechanism fed by feelings of shame and failure. The case of Hasimir Fenring clearly shows that no matter how precise our breeding records are, the unpredictable influence of the activations of recessives forces us to incorporate a substantial margin of error in our calculations, and shows us it is imperative that we continue to develop parallel bloodlines.
-Bene Gesserit Analysis-
 

"It appears everything is going as planned," Adros said.

"Yes." Aerope didn't betray any form of involvement with what they observed on their viewscreens. She had grown tired of the whole affair. She knew it would be over soon, and that gave her a small measure of strength.

"However, there do appear to be some problems down below," she continued.

"What do you mean?"

"Earlier today, there was a disturbance amongst some of the Netherdwellers. It appears they didn't understand the necessity of terminating the life of a genetic failure."

"There was another one?"

"Yes. I think we know whose genes are to blame, don't we?", she teased.

Adros laughed, not insulted by his wife's remark. "Blame the witches for that."

"Don't we always?", she said with a devious smile.

"Whatever the case may be," he said, attempting to bring the conversation back on track, "I trust the incident has been resolved?"

"Of course. Control educated them about the situation in the broadcast earlier this evening."

Adros pointed at a display with a long list of symbols, interspersed with several graphs. "The Net caught him again."

"But he evaded it - again."

"It took him here, didn't it? That was the intention. It will also help guide us to Chapter House."

"And you are sure he didn't figure out what was going on - who was watching him?"

"To him, we appeared as an old couple - a man and his wife."

"But he was a smart one - he accessed weapons specifications. Antique ones, but advanced compared to what he was used to nonetheless."

"I intended that to happen."

"Did you also intend those aliens to appear? They were a strange blend - Ix and Tleilax working together?"

"I didn't wish for that to happen, but realised deep inside that it had to."

"How did they find them?"

"They followed the no-ship."

"Don't you remember how difficult it was for us to figure out how to do that? I doubt that those primitives were capable of doing the same."

"The no-field wasn't complete - a barely detectable trace of tachyons was leaking from it. They traced that."

"And they probably knew that this leak existed."

"Of course. The Ixians built that no-ship. It's a safety measure - every one of their products has one for them to exploit as they see fit."

"But they captured only the Bashar - they let the others go free."

"The Bashar was all they needed."

"Why?"

"I'm not sure."

Adros did know at least part of the reason, but realised disclosing too much of his vision right now would jeopardise the proper unfolding of the events to come. I do not know everything - entering the deepest regions of my vision is simply too dangerous, and I dare not upset the delicate balance -, but I do know that currently everything is behaving as it should.

For almost my entire life, I have been preparing for what is now just around the corner. All those millennia ... and now it will finally come to an end. I could possibly truly end it, but that would mean relinquishing my responsibilities - failing to correct what my own mistakes threw into disarray. I cannot do that.

"Is Guldur aware of this?", Aerope asked.

"No."

Adros did not want to release his chain of thoughts just yet. Guldur ... He needs to be reinserted into his circles. He cannot be allowed to break free of the structure time itself dictates the way he's planning to.

Time ... What a strange thing it is. Not so much a property of something as it is an ordering principle, projected onto reality by more or less sentient beings - a mental construct whose properties were induced by the ability to remember and predict, mated to impressions and then abstracted from them again, and given independent existence within a theoretical framework born out of ignorance. Theoretically, it allows the existence of such atrocities as empty time, or infinitely expanded moments - the tunneling process that eventually resulted in the birth of the universe was not governed by time, instead creating it along with matter and force. Time is as dense as one would care to define it, but its direction is given: the experience of a single moment reveals the succession encapsulated within duration.

The motion of the allstream, the most fundamental level of reality underlying everything, is circular - I understand that now. He cannot be allowed to break the circle, but should remain trapped inside his double loop - perhaps eventually the loops will spiral upward, the quality of the events contained within them enhancing with each rotation. That is my goal.

"Guldur ...," Adros said, at last. "My greatest triumph, and my most destructive mistake."

"Haven't you traveled that road enough times already?", Aerope said, sounding slightly annoyed. "I know they exploited you, that you were merely flotsam on the waves of their plan, but aren't you now attempting to mend the damage that has been done?"

"Yes ..."

"Besides, apart from your own sins, it seems to me your choice of a mate caused the most problems," Aerope said, a mixture of hurt, anger and disappointment in her voice.

"You do know exactly how to hurt me the most," he said, memories of an earlier existence coming back to him.

But even more pain is caused by the knowledge I'm trapped within my own loop, Adros realised. The necessity of it all is most painful: time is circular, but history might not be. Despite the damage the Spice and the Golden Path caused, they need to be present in some form in each consecutive rotation to ensure the survival of the human race.

"What will happen to the ones still left on this planet?"

"You'll see. I think you'll be pleased."

His sleek, silvery left hand clasped her right hand tenderly, his blue-in-deepest-blue eyes gliding across the graceful curves of her face. "I really do love you, Aerope."

"But you could never love me quite as much as you loved her."

Sidestepping the issue that had come up many times in the past, he said: "You have sacrificed so much for our plan over the millennia. I don't think anyone else would have done that."

"You're avoiding having to say it again. I don't like it."

Adros once more pretended not to have heard her annoyed remark. "Soon I will be able to set you free. I will be able to grant you death."

Aerope's tone of voice changed drastically, shifting from angered to concerned. "But you won't die."

He released her hand and sat back, painful resignation in his voice. "No."

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